Community of PracticeProject Management

Presented by Ibrahim ELMasry

Objectives

• What is a community of practice?• Why is it important?• How it support promoting Informal Learning• Who is invited to join?

What Is It?

Communities of Practice (CoPs)are collaborative, informal networks that support

professional practitioners in their efforts to develop

shared understandings and engage in work- relevant

knowledge building.

Communities of Practice compared to functional or

project teams

• Objectives• Deadlines• Time Span• Leadership

Community of Practice in terms of Organizational

Learning

• The interactions within a CoP are helpful to nurturing new knowledge, stimulating innovation, or sharing existing knowledge within an organization. It is now an important part of organizational development (OD).

• “For organizations, learning is an issue of sustaining the interconnected communities of practice through which an organization knows what it knows and thus becomes effective and valuable as an organization”

(Wenger 1998)

Communities of Practice in terms of Knowledge

Management

• Community of Practice has become associated with knowledge management, in particular as a way of transferring tacit knowledge.

• Earlier approaches to Knowledge Management treated knowledge as objects (Explicit Knowledge); however CoPs seemed to offer a way to theorize tacit knowledge, which is that kind of knowledge that can not easily be captured, codified and stored.

Communities of Practice and Social Capital

• CoPs are becoming a method used in developing social capital by building stronger connections between members of the community; thus, the organization to which the community belongs.

• Through the connections community members have in their CoP, and the process of sharing their expertise, learning from others, and participating in the group, members are said to be acquiring social capital - the trust that members build between themselves and others that can lower barriers to communication.

Why CoPs?Individual & Organizational Benefits

• Problem solving • Developing new capabilities • Leveraging best practices • Standardizing practices • Time savings • Increase in talent • Avoiding mistakes

• Creating new knowledge

What Generation Are You A Part Of?

1. Silent Generation (born 1925 -1945)

2. Baby Boomer (born 1946- 1964)

3. Generation X (born 1965- 1976)

4. Generation Y or Millenials (born 1977-1997)

5. Generation Next (born 1998- Present)

1977 - 1997

“The bottom line is this:

If you understand the Net Generation,

you will understand the future. You will

also understand how our institutions and

society need to change today.”

Don Tapscott

The Groundswell Trend is

“This is an important, irreversible, completely different way for people to relate to companies and to each other”

Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff

Because all of the said facts

• Create and nurture Community of Practices- CoPs

• Create Formal Coaching and Mentoring Relationships

• Provide dedicated time for informal learning on the job

• Create places for employees to congregate, collaborate, and learn from each other

• Create Systems so that information & knowledge are captured

Who Is Invited?

• Any employee in the organization, who have the interest, passion and commitment to positively contribute to the community and the organization.

• The focus should be on attracting new prominent members from Generation Y and X.

• External professionals, who are interested to join are welcomed on www.Linkedin.com

QUESTIONS?